


between the embers we will walk

by Crazymuggleinthestruggle



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Limbo, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:28:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27539902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crazymuggleinthestruggle/pseuds/Crazymuggleinthestruggle
Summary: Arthur had a faint burn mark on his thumb that could only be seen if someone actually paid attention to him.Eames had seen it the first time he had laid eyes on Arthur.
Relationships: Ariadne & Arthur (Inception), Ariadne & Eames (Inception), Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 28





	between the embers we will walk

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from "soleil, soleil" by Pomme.

Eames kisses Arthur for the first time on fifteenth September. It's Arthur's twenty third birthday. The night is high and Eames chases the taste of coffee and chocolate in Arthur's mouth.  
***

"I have been thinking", says Eames. "Oh God", says Arthur.  
He doesn't mean that. 

Not truly in the ways that matter.  
*** 

Eames kisses Arthur for the last time on sixteenth September. It's the day after Arthur turns thirty five. A cruel imitation of a full circle.

Eames kisses Arthur for the last time on sixteenth September. This time the sun is higher and Eames chases Notryovick's men.  
Or maybe Notryovick's men chase him.  
***

Later, when Arthur is no longer the darling point man of his, Eames forgets something. 

Something important. It resides in his brain like an itch waiting to be scratched.  
Only Eames can't find the correct spot. 

It'll be much later though.  
***

"Oh God", says Arthur and doesn't truly mean it. But what if he did. What if he truly meant it in all the ways it mattered. What if he didn't come with Eames and what if he wasn't the darling point man of his. 

His darling point man who did not allow any loose ends. His darling point man whose affinity for no loose ends and Eames - a dangerous amalgam - becomes his undoing.  
***

Arthur had a faint burn mark on his thumb that could only be seen if someone actually paid attention to him. 

Eames had seen it the first time he had laid eyes on Arthur.  
***

"Aaaaaarthur. My darling point man." 

"You're a sappy drunk, Mr. Eames."

"Darling, I'm always a sap for you."  
***

"What is the most resilient parasite, Mr. Eames?" asks Dominick Cobb, "Bacteria? A virus? An intestinal worm? All wrong. It's an idea. Resilient, highly contagious. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain it's almost impossible to eradicate. An idea that is fully formed - fully understood - that sticks; right in there somewhere."  
That was the first time Eames had worked with Dom. He didn't really pay much attention to Dom. 

Glib. That's what his sources had told him about Dom.  
Eames disagreed. It was Mallorie Cobb who interested Eames much more. 

Smart, fierce, cunning, protective and persevering. Mallorie Cobb was a force to be reckoned with. She was a wolf in sheep's skin and the eye of the storm. The harbour where ships were docked. 

Nothing could touch her. Until it did.  
Until it did.  
***

A totem. A tether to the real world.  
Who was to say what was real. Reality was a perspective. Nobody's reality matched someone else's. Reality is a vulnerable thing. A flimsy thing. But not a temporary thing.  
***

What happens when your totem is the person you love?  
***

Dominick Cobb had once told him an idea was the most resilient parasite and Eames had rolled his eyes to continue on with his day. 

Dominick Cobb had once told him an idea was the most resilient parasite. In hindsight, maybe he should have paid more attention to him.  
***

Eames, when he was not yet Eames, had a sister. She was a wonder to behold. Three years older and a million times smarter. She hadn't lasted long in the Dreamshare world, though.  
***

Eames forgets something. 

Here's what Eames remembers:  
An idea is like a parasite  
He had a sister  
He had a darling point man  
He had a totem  
He had lost his darling point man  
He had lost his totem  
***

When Eames had been twenty one, he had enlisted in the army. He was whisked into Project 01993GHD764 two months later.  
Just like his sister. 

Project 01993GHD764.  
It hadn't been named Dreamshare, yet. 

Eames had been whisked into Project 01993GHD764 when he was twenty one years and two months. He had met Arthur the day after he turned twenty two. Eames was three hundred days older to him.  
***

What happens when the person you love dies? 

More importantly

What happens when your only tether to the real world dies?  
***

Eames forgets something.  
Ariadne is the first to figure it out. 

Ariadne adorned in colourful scarves and sturdy boots. Ariadne who takes to Dreamshare like a fish to water. Ariadne who never meets the force that was Mallorie Cobb. Ariadne the only person who could ever give Mallorie Cobb a decent competition when it came to brilliance. 

And Ariadne who loses her only two friends after Eames is forced to stop counting the number of days by which he was older to Arthur.  
***

"Do you ever think about your sister?", Arthur had once asked him. It had been after Project 01993GHD764 had been renamed to Dreamshare.

He hadn't needed to look up to know the way Eames had carefully slipped into a different persona and completely shuttered off. 

He hadn't needed to search too closely for the faint stutter when Eames had said no.  
***

In the aftermath of Notryovick's men, Ariadne had been left with a brutally dead man and a man who was a shadow and a weak imitation of the person he once was. 

In the aftermath of Notryovick's men, Ariadne had been left with a widow who had just lost his only other companion in the world and two children who had experienced too many losses in their too few years. 

In the aftermath of Notryovick's men, Ariadne had been forced to organise the funeral of her friend and mentor.

In the aftermath of Notryovick's men, Ariadne had been the one who had stopped Eames from rushing off after Notryovick. 

In the aftermath of Notryovick's men, Ariadne thinks she missed something important. She stumbles upon the clues too late.  
***

Eames thinks he did a job. He doesn't remember the job quite so well, though. 

Eames thinks it's somehow related to Arthur. 

And Eames thinks he had been with Ariadne.  
***

In the end, it's Ariadne who is the first to figure it out. In the end, it's Ariadne who thinks she has finally found Eames only to realise she's farther from Eames than ever before.  
***

What happens when your totem is the person you love and they die?

Well, in Eames' case, it turns out he forgets something extremely important. 

He forgets how vulnerable reality truly is.  
***

It had been Eames who had found Arthur's body. Bloodied and grotesque and tortured and starved. A litany of marks that were new to Arthur's pale skin. 

The only tangible detail to the man who had been Eames' totem: a hardly present burn mark on his thumb.  
***  
Eames thinks about his sister quite often, actually. 

The cadence of her voice, the colour of her eyes, the way her hair rested on her shoulders, the way she walked. 

The way she had looked at Eames when he had been slotted into the same group as her during one of their early trial runs in Project 01993GHD764. 

The way she had looked sad and helpless, if he looked too closely.  
The way she never did. 

He thinks about how, between a few too many simulations and not enough rest, he had missed all the clues. 

He thinks about how she had calmly- almost too calmly- picked up a M9 and killed 2 soldiers before killing herself. 

He thinks about her brief moment of hesitation when she had seen his face. 

He thinks about how he could have stopped her and he thinks about how she could have still been alive if he wasn't a coward and he never stops thinking and never lets his mind idle.  
***

Later, Eames finds himself looking at Ariadne's too thin face and too tired eyes. 

Later, Ariadne stares at him for entirely too long and asks, "Eames, is that you?" 

Later, Eames conjures up a mirror in a dream he had not realised being in. 

Later, he sees himself, except he doesn't. 

Later, Eames remembers what he has forgotten.  
***

Eames finds Arthur's body and calls Ariadne. He stays silent for too long on the call and talks in a hollowed out voice with too clipped sentences. 

Ariadne tracks down Eames and of course she does. After all, she mentored under the enigma that was Arthur and is capable beyond her years. 

Ariadne reaches Eames far too fast and stares down resolutely and wills herself not to mourn. She arranges everything and keeps everything tied together. No loose ends. 

Except, she somehow misses every clue from the man with the too hollow voice and a suddenly non existent totem.  
***

Eames met Arthur the day after he turned twenty two. He hadn't learned the finer points of forgery, yet. 

Eames perfects his first forgery the day Arthur, his darling point man who wasn't that yet, turns twenty two. 

Arthur is the first one to see Eames' newly perfected forgery. Arthur is the first one to see Ethan.  
***

Arthur had a faint burn mark on his thumb that could only be seen if a person truly wanted to. 

Eames had seen it the first time he had laid eyes on Arthur. 

Years later, after Arthur was his darling point man, Eames had tried to track down the origin of that particular scar along with many others. 

"A particularly nasty cooking adventure that included a terrifyingly hot wok of oil and perfect churros", Arthur had said with a smile, revisiting that particular memory. 

And Eames. Eames had stored it. Careful and fond and all the things in between.  
***

Eames looks at himself in the mirror and a stranger's face is reflected back. Except the stranger is not quite a stranger. 

Eames stares and stares into the pits of green eyes and red hair and freckled nose framed by a face structure that is not not correct but correct at the same time. A paradox, if you may. 

Eames looks into the mirror and Ethan stares back at him. 

Eames looks into the mirror and realises he is in a dream he doesn't remember coming into. 

Eames looks into the mirror and tells Ariadne to take him back home.  
Wherever home is.  
***

Eames was saved by Arthur when he was twenty four and Arthur was three hundred days younger and Eames would never let his mind idle. 

Eames was saved too late and too soon, many years later. When Arthur was no longer there to carry out the point and tie up the loose ends. Arthur, who was no longer there but made sure to leave his entirely too brilliant protégé to look after Eames.

And in the end, it was as much a love story, as it was not.


End file.
